Award-winning director Joseph Losey guides this suspenseful mystery through its paces, beginning with an apparently guilty Dutch artist, Jan Van Rooyen (Hardy Kruger), caught in an upscale cottage where a woman lies murdered. Hard-nosed, irritable Inspector Morgan (Stanley Baker) is certain Van Rooyen is guilty and begins to grill him about his story. The artist finally admits that he and the dead woman, Jacqueline Cousteau (Micheline Presle), had met by accident and eventually began a love affair. She was married, so they kept their liaison a secret. Inspector Morgan then informs him that the woman was single but involved with a high-level diplomat. So what is going on'